A House panel is demanding the bank records from a company that received aborted fetal body parts from Planned Parenthood.
The Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives announced subpoenas for banking and account records for StemExpress, a small biotech firm that Republicans on the panel believe are profiting off the sale of aborted fetal tissue. The subpoenas come a few weeks after a contentious hearing where Democrats charged Repbulicans on the panel with providing misleading claims about the company.
Republicans say the subpoeans are necessary to complete a full review of StemExpress, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is rejecting Democrats’ claim that the panel is nothing more than a partisan attack on Planned Parenthood and women’s health.
“We have learned that not only is this investigation warranted, but further examination of accounting records is needed to get the complete facts about what was actually going on,” she said.
The panel held a hearing last month that devolved into partisan attacks on both sides. Democrats charged that Republicans on the panel were using documents that may be fake or stolen to make their case against StemExpress.
“Is this hearing really going to proceed based on stolen and misleading documents?” asked Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., at the hearing.
The scrutiny of StemExpress is the result of a series of undercover videos that detail Planned Parenthood officials discussing the harvesting and donation of aborted fetal body parts.
So far, Planned Parenthood has not been charged with any criminal negligence and the maker of the videos, anti-abortion activist David Daleiden, has been indicted by a Texas grand jury in connection to the videos.
